


People of the Stars

by maedron



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, First Age, Gen, Time Travel, featuring tolkien fanboy!Spock, i wanted it to exist so i am writing it, potential into darkness rewrite?, pre-into darkness, silm/trek crossover!, somewhat meta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 08:34:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maedron/pseuds/maedron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even as a scientist, in Spock's initial observations of the topography of this planet – the coastline, the mountain ranges, the unusual formation at the northern polar regions – he could see only the map of a world imprinted on his mind since childhood.  </p><p>The map had been in the back of a book.  The book had been written by a man.  The world did not exist.  And yet it did.<br/>---<br/>Silmarillion/Star Trek AOS crossover, pre-Into Darkness; possible eventual Into Darkness rewrite?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted a Silmarillion/Star Trek crossover to exist, so I am writing one. Unbeta'd and posted in the middle of the night! Like it says on the tin, may eventually be an ID rewrite.

Here is the dream that he doesn’t remember: 

The people wake at dusk; the stars shine above them. This is their first and best memory, the one that they will commit to song before they even have language. 

(In darker times, in places where there is no light at all, this is the first song they will sing.) 

Jim knows this because he has the same memory – or almost the same. It is a memory of being very small, of watching pinpricks of light form out of the flat lavender gloaming above a Midwestern field, of fear and awe running together in his veins, into the urge to speak. 

_Ele_ , he says. _Look_. 

He looks on his own hands as they frame the stars.

\-- 

**Space. Stardate 2259.55**

It started when Jim Kirk woke up in the middle of gamma shift, feeling a little weird. 

And that could have meant anything, a few hours after he’d eaten dinner. Maybe his loving CMO had pure-heartedly snuck some experimental inoculation into his hot dish, and this was just his immune system seeking a truce with the retroviruses. Or maybe the replicator was programming red dye no. 5 into the maraschino cherries now, instead whichever additive he wasn’t mildly-but-not-deathly intolerant of. Surely even the ship’s computer lost track, on occasion. 

But he realized, after a few minutes, that the sensation wasn’t intestinal – no, not exactly, though it was coming from his gut. 

(In the metaphysical, rather than the literal sense, which is how Jim would have explained it to Spock, which was sometimes how his thought patterns worked these days, which kind of freaked Jim out, to be honest.) 

“Lights, twenty percent.” 

As his eyes cracked open Jim could feel the Enterprise purring normally in the background, her white noise natural to him as his own breath. 

But there was still something _wrong_ , an anticipatory lurch, like a memory of vertigo. Disorientation. Or maybe he was still dreaming. 

It was then that the whole ship pitched dramatically starboard, thrashing him against the wall that cupped his mattress. Jim heard a stack of padds cascade from his desk like dominoes. The red alert sirens whooped on outside. Within seconds, his communicator was chirping from somewhere on the floor. 

Nope, Jim thought, elbowing over to the side of the bed. This was definitely his reality. 

“Kirk here.” 

“Captain—” came the hesitant voice of Acting Captain Sulu (unnerving, as Acting Captain Sulu preferred not to hesitate). “Our normal course to Veridian system was disrupted. We were thrown out of warp approximately – well, you probably noticed.” 

“Let me put on some pants.” 

“Sir.” 

Jim fumbled regulation sweats up his legs, and stretched a black undershirt over sleep-heavy arms. 

Him and his gut feelings. 

\-- 

Spock, although a much heavier sleeper, was in full attire and already forty strides ahead of him when Jim walked out of his quarters. 

“What’s your best guess?” Jim called, jogging up the corridor behind him. 

“Captain,” Spock turned on a heel. “Or Jim, I suppose, as it appears you have failed to put on the command shirt that designates you as such.” 

“Pajamas, Spock. Also known as your most beloved article of clothing.” 

“And your least beloved, which is why I am reluctant to believe…” 

Jim’s head pinwheeled as they passed a bank of transparent aluminum portholes. After the disarming jiggle of the warp-fail, there was something calming about the static space outside. 

Something familiar. 

“Shit, Spock. What kind of a star array does that look like to you?” 

His First Officer ducked in next to him. For milliseconds, the flurry of calculation could be read across his dark eyes; for the ghost of an instant, a look of incredulity – though it couldn’t be. 

In one point four seconds Spock straightened his brow – as best he could – and said: 

“We are in sight of the Terran constellations Serpens, Scorpius, Ophiuchus, and Sagittarius. I have reason to conclude that we have returned to sector 001.” 

“Earth. We’re coasting right off Earth. After seven hours at maximum warp towards a star system in the opposite direction.” 

“Though the probability of such an outcome is infinitesimal, that is nonetheless evidently the case, Captain.” 

They had fallen back into a semi-urgent jog, bridge-ward, Spock almost hopping in place as Jim stopped to remind discombobulated crewmembers along the way that they were entitled to medical care, and the secondary aquatic research laboratory could probably mind itself while M’Benga tended to sprained ankles. 

“Why do we have so many fish tanks?” asked Jim rhetorically. 

Spock, though he had likely authorized them, found it illogical to discuss such a matter at this time. 

“There are a number of possible anomalies I am weighing in consideration to explain our apparent divergence from course. Due to a personnel error, the navigational systems are two point six days overdue for inspection, and may have been malfunctioning since our previous mooring at Crepusculum II.” 

“Yeah, if whoever was at the nav controls had no eyes.” 

“May I remind you that one of the Enterprise’s navigators serves admirably, without being anatomically equipped with an equivalent of the vertebrate ocular organ?” 

“It definitely wasn’t Becky. She would’ve sensed something was up with those electromagnets in her tusks. I mean, what are we really talking here, Spock? Wormhole? Some kind of interspatial flexure?” 

“I am merely proceeding from the most mundane explanation to the least plausible.” 

“What in the _bloody bollocksed hell_ is happening to this ship?” 

That exclamation announced the running arrival of a very enraged Lt. Cmdr. Scott, turning the curve of the corridor, his face nearly the same shade of red as his shirt. The Chief Engineer was also on an off-shift of some permutation, but Jim knew better than to think that he and his First were the only two people on this ship with a less-than-healthy work/life balance. 

“Hate to ask how it’s looking down there, Scotty,” Jim called, “but this is the part when I have to ask you how it’s looking down there.”

“How’s it looking?” Scotty was suppressing hysterical laughter, and possibly tears. “Well, apart from burning eighty six percent of remaining dilithium supplies in a matter of about fifteen seconds as she undertook an inexplicable warp termination with no advance notice to Engineering staff, just as the Chief Engineer was in the midst of his nightcap, the Enterprise is doing just grand. For a ship which has lost, as I will remind you, eighty six percent of its key fuel supply. In under a minute. For no particularly good reason.” 

Jim shrugged. “Well, it’s good thing we landed right off of Earth, then. We can gas up easy.” 

Scotty’s face, as he boarded the turbolift with Spock and Jim, was priceless and slightly terrifying, but his tirade into the theoretical improbabilities that were at hand here drowned out in the chaos of the bridge. 

The scene they walked in on was the full complement of the nightshift crew engaged in the distressed barking of status reports from their stations, as if they were in the midst of a full-on ambush of suddenly decloaking Klingon warbirds, instead of drifting peacefully toward the familiar blue-green orb on the viewscreen. 

“Calm down, everyone. It’s Earth.”

(Jim was using his best captain-on-the-bridge, don’t-worry-kids-daddy’s-home voice.) 

“I’ve got an unofficial confirmation on this from Commander Spock, which I am sure your coordinate readings will back up.” 

Sulu rose from the captain’s chair, all contained exasperation. 

“Respectfully, Captain, we’re at Terran coordinates, but this isn’t Earth. At least we’d better hope it’s not.” 

He nodded in the direction of Lt. Castro, manning the communications console. 

“No signal from any terrestrial contacts, Captain. All Starfleet frequencies are inactive.” 

“No evidence of spacedocks or civilian vessels in orbit, Captain,” chimed the on-duty helmsman. 

“Life scans indicate a humanoid population of approximately…seven hundred thousand,” came the reluctant voice of the acting science officer, her mandibles quivering. 

The silence after that was much worse than the chaos, so Jim did what he always did and made for the chair. 

“Any response to distress signals?” 

“Not since the warp fail, sir. Attempting contact on all channels.” 

“Keep at it. Mr. Scott, how long do we have at current dilithium levels?” 

“I cannae say, Captain – if we keep her in park two to three weeks on the outside, but she’ll be gasping on fumes in five days if we don’t start depowering auxiliary systems. If there’s a sliver of hope we can get a single rock of dilithium off this bloody planet, I need to know about it, yesterday. I don’t give a care if it’s Earth or not. ” 

“Captain, I have hypothesis regarding the obtainment of crystalline dilithium.”

Though he had been trailing Jim all the while, Spock had remained strangely quiet since coming onto the bridge, not assuming his post at the science station but standing in contemplation behind the captain’s chair. His eyes were fixed on the viewscreen, where the not-Earth floated in all her seeming normalcy. 

After a first glance – when the mind cast the familiar shape of the Terran continents onto the land beneath the swirling clouds – it gradually become clear that this planet inhabited a different geological era than the Earth they had left behind eighteen months ago. A wide green continent ridged with dark ocean now filled much of the visible expanse, resembling the coastlines of Africa and Europe, joined together with no breach for the Mediterranean. 

Whether this was the landscape of the past or future was, ideally, something that could be sorted out before the first landing party to beam down got mauled by a flock of pterodons. 

Jim turned around to face his First. 

“Shoot, Spock.” 

“As they are not fully formed, I require several hours of research to refine my – suspicions.” 

Jim nodded him off the bridge - panic rising, ever so slightly, at the notion that Spock could cogitate with anything other than absolute certainty. 

\--

Spock had recognized the shape of the continent within three point seventeen seconds of arriving on the bridge, taking two point seven into account for his initial disbelief. 

Even as a scientist, in his initial observations of the topography of this planet – the coastline, the mountain ranges, the unusual formation at the northern polar regions – he could see only the map of a world imprinted on his mind since childhood. 

The map had been in the back of a book. The book had been written by a man. The world did not exist. And yet it did. 

It was a paradox he ought to have been contemplating as he returned in haste to his quarters, and yet Spock was now thinking, somewhat illogically, of his mother’s aptitude for purchasing thoughtful Christmas presents. 

An annual festival involving the seemingly pointless exchange of objects had greatly redeemed itself in a Vulcan household through Amanda Grayson’s keen sense of utility and, particularly, her sensitivity to timing. 

Christmas almost always occurred during the height of diplomatic congress in the Vulcan southern hemisphere’s temperate spring season, when Sarek had been required to attend frequent meetings in rooms where the air temperature was well below the ideal range for copper-based blood. He had, accordingly, received a new package of alpaca-wool socks every year. 

At the age of eleven, coinciding with the period of time at which his maladjustment to preadolescent Vulcan social order was at its apex, Spock had received a set of cloth-bound books for Christmas. (That his mother preferred to enjoy literature as a physical object, rather than a data file, was an anachronism to which he did not entirely object.) Their author was a Terran of the twentieth century, and a man who Amanda admired greatly as a linguist. Yet the books were not linguistic tracts, and however such books might have proved useful in his studies, Spock was grateful that they were not. 

In the course of his first reading of these volumes, over six point seventeen hours on Christmas Day, it had dawned on Spock that his mother had perhaps shared this narrative with him because it provided a positive depiction of the hybridization of two humanoid species. One of which was _Homo sapiens_ , and the other a hardier and longer-lived race, renowned for lore and for poetry, though known to have had a bellicose past. 

These humanoids were also known for a distinctive feature of their physiognomy – the pinna of the external audial organ was not fully rounded, but tapered. 

Or, as Spock’s current consulting physician would have summed, _they all have goddamned pointy ears_. 

“Mother,” he’d said, finding her at work at the kitchen table later than evening, “I surmise that you intend for my exposure to _The Lord of the Rings_ to supply a parallel to my experiences as descendent of two peoples. However, unlike the _peredhel_ or the heirs of Númenor, my own situation provides no institutionalized reverence for the Half-Vulcan.” 

Amanda had taken him into her arms then. 

“Spock, it’s also just a good adventure story. Did you like that?” 

“Yes. It was pleasing.” 

“Do you want to read another?” 

“There are additional volumes?” 

His mother smiled and brought him to the library, where she pulled a dog-eared paperback from the shelf. 

This was how Spock came to read _The Silmarillion_ ninety-one times in three weeks. 

This was approximately the length of time that it took for a complete twelve-volume set of _The Histories of Middle-earth_ to be scanned and delivered from multiple Terran university libraries, a venture that was impeded by the texts’ publication history prior to the cataclysms of Earth’s 21st century. Amanda was fortunately very resourceful in her relationships with the archivists of her home planet, having more than once resolved major matters of debate in the alphabetization of the more obscure Federation languages. 

When a data file containing the entire extant written corpus of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien finally arrived, the young Spock had proceeded to commit much of it to memory. 

The Ringspell in the Black Speech. The Kings of Arnor and of Arthedain and the Stewards of Gondor, descendents of the House of Húrin. The noble families of the Shire. The line of Finwë, High King of the Noldor, taking into account where each version differed on the parentage of Ereinion Gil-galad. 

During his predilection – Spock thought of it as scholarship, in a way, though his mother had more than once used the word “fandom” – he had developed a specialized interest in the Eldar. Of course, this was not based solely on the superficial aesthetic similarities between Tolkien’s Elves and the race from which Spock drew half of his genetic material. Such reductionist thinking was antithetical to the good Professor’s conception of the species (and akin, one might add, to referring to a Vulcan as a “hobgoblin”). 

In fact, barring a rigorous intellect and long lifespan, Elves and Vulcans seemed to have very little in common. The Noldor – the clan whose history had been most fully documented by Tolkien – seemed to almost embody a kind of Vulcan society in reverse. Where Surak had led Vulcan from chaos and warmongering to rationalism and peace, Fëanor had led a people at the apex of their cultural and technological development to murder their own kin, to suffer in hostile lands, and to fade away into darkness, deprived forever of the light of their home. 

(Spock, glimpsing again out of a portal in his quarters at the blackness ever surrounding the Enterprise, gave pause to the fact that, now, the latter was a doom that every Vulcan also knew.) 

Studying the history of land that had never existed was not a logical pursuit. It had not been one that Spock’s father had ever approved of very much, not when there were axioms to be recited and theorems to be proved. Not when there had been so very much to prove to everyone, when his mind and body were a case study to an entire planet. 

Yet now, though it seemed completely of the realm of the impossible, the infinitesimal probability that his knowledge of Arda and its peoples would ever come to practical use appeared to be fulfilling itself. 

In a testament to the long period of his adolescence he had spent in the comfort of these books, Spock kept the same data file of Tolkien’s work in his onboard working folders. As he opened a map of Beleriand on his screen and ran its contours against a preliminary life-sign projection of the planet’s surface, assembled his request by the science team, Spock saw the population centers converging. 

Doriath. Nargothrond. Eithel Sirion. Within the mountains ringing the valley of Gondolin, there was a statistically insignificant density of life forms. Morbidly, that gave some sense of their timeframe. 

Spock’s mind was leaping so far out of bounds that he did not notice Lieutenant Uhura entering his quarters with the override. Nor did he realize she was now standing directly behind him, until after the second throat-clearing. 

“Look, fanboy,” she started – arms crossed in an oversize knit pullover that, Spock realized, must have been procured from his own closet at some point – “you’re going to have to explain to me another time why this is the material you’re choosing to reference during a major crisis, but Kirk’s so freaked out about whatever’s going on that he actually came and got _me_ in the middle of my off-shift, since apparently you’ve forgotten how to use your communicator.” 

“Nyota, do you possess a familiarity with the conlangs of J.R.R. Tolkien?” 

“Elvish? Not besides the extra credit quiz you gave us in Intermediary Phonotactics that everyone got so pissed about. Wait, Spock, what the hell – ?”

“I am going to entrust you to build Universal Translator extensions for the Quenya and Sindarin languages. You will find that I have just sent you extensive grammars for each, compiled by my mother before her death.” 

“You’re kidding me.” 

“I do not – ”

“I know. Give me a few hours. Now get out of here before Jimmy busts a gasket.” 

\-- 

**Amon Ereb: FA 545**

In spite of the name he was given at birth, he preferred to avoid the night sky. It gave him more grief than it was worth. 

(Among the major ironies of his life, he supposed this was like a pebble rattling between boulders in a river.) 

Yet that evening when he hoisted the well-water up by its cable, Elrond saw it perfectly reflected in the shimmering basins. The gaudy ship, or was it a star? A star-ship? It was bigger and brighter than usual. 

“He’s out in force tonight, I see.” 

His father appeared out of the encircling twilight, black hair absently twisted up in the harp slung over his back. Elrond put the water-yoke on his own shoulders, and they walked back together towards home. 

“I swear he sheds more light on this plot of land than over anywhere else,” Maglor spoke again. 

The statement could have seemed sentimental – that Eärendil sought out his sons on the earth from his post in the heavens. Yet no Fëanárion, not even the sweetest-tongued, could ever speak of the Mariner without the ragged edge of anger in their voice. He had stolen forever what was theirs. Their vengeance was an act written in blood. 

Both of his fathers were cruel in their own ways, Elrond knew well. Yet only one walked beside him in the tall grass. 

“A draught for your old man, I say!” 

Elrond carefully maneuvered the horn into a basin of water. “How many hours were you singing?” he asked. 

“As long as the trees would have me. Come, Star-Dome.” 

They hurried inside, away from the brightness of a star that was drawing closer and closer to the earth. 

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Dome = lit. translation of Elrond


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even as a scientist, in Spock's initial observations of the topography of this planet – the coastline, the mountain ranges, the unusual formation at the northern polar regions – he could see only the map of a world imprinted on his mind since childhood.
> 
> The map had been in the back of a book. The book had been written by a man. The world did not exist. And yet it did.  
> \---  
> Silmarillion/Star Trek AOS crossover, set immediately pre-Into Darkness in the Trek AOS verse and at the bitter end of the First Age in the Tolkien verse; possible eventual Into Darkness rewrite?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also unbeta'd, also posted in the middle of the night! Thanks for reading and for waiting (I know this is a pretty wippy wip).

Jim read a lot as kid, more than he let on, even if Sam was supposed to be the family genius and Jim the truant little brother. He’d just had a lot of energy. 

Sometimes that meant he stole cars. 

A lot of the time, it meant he was staying up all night under the covers with a datapad, scrolling through page after page. 

He liked true stories. Histories of Federation civilizations – first the kids’ versions, with the shiny gloss over all the bad and scary stuff. Then he got back from Tarsus, and he went back and read about all the bad and scary stuff he could get his hands on. Bubonic plague. The Eugenics wars. The Trans-Atlantic passage. The Tong Vey massacre of Klingon unification. 

It was how he started to make sense of what had happened. It was part of what had tipped the scales in favor of James T. Kirk, Federation-class starship captain, instead of Jimmy Kirk, permafucked Riverside townie. 

So it hardly seemed fair that the Enterprise had crash-landed in timeline of a Terran civilization that Jim had never read a word about in the history books. The only background knowledge he had going for him right now was that one time he saw _The Return of the King_ at the Rock River Drive-In the summer after junior year of high school, when Wendy Esposito had strong-armed him into taking her out to an early twenty-first century film festival.

How much of the film he had actually seen was unclear, given what they were getting up to in the backseat of her dad’s pickup. Jim dimly remembered being grateful for all the extra endings. 

“So they never made a movie of this one?” 

“Captain, while I reserve the right to continue this explanation at a later point, the complexities of twenty-first century copyright law are not relevant in our present situation.” 

“Spock, according to the senior science officer on board this ship – oh yeah, that’s _you_ – the solitary communications signal we’ve picked up on in six hours is apparently emanating from the brains of giant eagles. _Hostile_ giant eagles. Since you’re telling me that we have somehow warped into an obscure fantasy novel, I’m just saying it would be nice to see where this goes in the third act without scrutinizing eighteen pounds of text.” 

“I remain firm in my suggestions that you proceed with the recommended reading material I have supplied.” 

Jim gulped down the dregs of a really shitty cup of coffee and zipped up his sweatshirt. He was wearing his command yellow underneath now, mostly because it was an extra layer. Scotty had been thorough in the dilithium-scarcity survival plan, cutting energy expenditure across the board – which meant the crew was going to be eating unflavored protein nubs in their snow pants for the foreseeable future. It also meant that the Enterprise was parked in plain sight in the orbit of an ostensibly pre-warp civilization. 

Then again, it was also an ostensibly fictional civilization. 

Either way, it was starting to feel like the rulebook didn’t apply here. His First Officer – whose counsel Jim was used to taking very seriously, even if he was a big nerd – was dropping some straight-up dungeon master knowledge, information that was now apparently relevant to the wellbeing of four-hundred-plus Starfleet personnel onboard the Enterprise. 

It was even harder to keep a straight face now that Spock was wearing that heavy, fleece-hooded down parka. 

“As I was saying, Captain, as they were beloved of Aulë, god of craftsmen, the Noldor were apprenticed under his tutelage in the art of hewing gemstones. It was Curufinwë Fëanáro, first son of Finwë, High King of the Noldor in Aman, who developed the most profound innovations in the material sciences.” 

“So dude basically invents everything from glass to tempered steel to artificial light. Also, everyone has the same name.” 

“Many of the Eldar appear to have named their children in accordance with familial affiliation. In this I see no difference from the customs of many other species. Captain, if you would allow me to continue –”

“Incoming!” The conference room door banged open, revealing one of the more terrifying sights to be had on the Enterprise: Leonard McCoy with a box of hypos, wearing a fur hat. 

“Bones, you can’t kick that, it’s a sliding door.” 

“All right, given that your hotshot asses are about to reparticulate down onto that shady-looking planet any second now, I have taken the liberty of rescheduling all your booster shots for immediately.” McCoy clattered down to the table, rummaging through the vaccines. 

“I’m not taking any chances with this alternate-Earth shit, especially considering the presumed lack of sanitary infrastructure. If anybody comes back with reverse-polarized polio I’m not re-orienting their entire molecular structure. They’re going out an airlock.” 

He fired up a hypo and rammed it in under Jim’s ear. 

“FUCK.” 

“There’s my special dispensation.” 

Spock was just opening his mouth to finish that pre-interruption thought when the doctor reached across the table to stick him in the temple. The hypo contained a vaccine corresponding to an endemic Vulcan form of viral encephalitis, requiring application near the psi points. It usually took Spock a half-hour of meditation to prepare for it.

“You too, Commander,” McCoy smiled, somewhat evilly, as Spock went several shades greener than usual. “Who knows what kinds of special hobgoblin-y contagions are gonna latch onto your immune system down there. The ears’ve got to account for some biological similarities.” 

While the two highest-ranking officers on the Enterprise blinked back the effects of the hypos and Bones lined up further instruments of death, three additional members of the senior staff had appeared in the conference room in various states of cold-weather dress. Sulu and Chekov were passing a thermos of tea back and forth, looking deeply tired. Uhura had added several additional sweaters from Spock’s closet to her frame. She pulled a data chip from one of many pockets, sliding it to him across the table. 

“Universal Translator extensions as requested, Commander. They’re a little spotty, but they’ll be adaptable to new vocabulary.” 

“Did you take the Fëanorian thorn into account for Quenya sibilants?” Spock replied, head in hands. 

Uhura sat down next to him and smiled. “You know how I love a linguistic shibboleth.” 

“Hey, everybody.” Jim staggered up. “I trust you all read Commander Spock’s report. Where’s Sco – ”

“So let me get this straight – the moment we undergo a major warp failure event resulting in a critical power loss happens to coincide with the very same moment we enter a parallel universe with zero modern technology. Oh, and one that was invented inside the brain of an _English nationalist_. That’s just brilliant, that is.” 

Scotty slumped into a backward chair, wearing his reinstated Delta Vega exile outfit. 

“O-kay. If anybody has further thoughts on the fucked-up-ness of this situation, I’ve already tried them all on Mr. Spock. To review the basics,” Jim clicked on the viewboard. “In spatial coordinates and geologic and atmospheric makeup, this planet is identical to Earth. But it’s not Earth. We’re not going to call it not-Earth or weird Earth, and Spock just told me we can’t actually call it Middle-earth either.” 

“That’s confusing as hell,” said Sulu helpfully. 

“No, no, no,” Chekov turned to him, “is wery specifically delineated in ze Tolkien cosmology. Meedle-eart’ refer to ze large eastern continent of Endor, encompassing regions of Eriador, Rhovanion, Harad, Rhûn, et cetera, as well as subcontinent of Beleriand, which sinks cataclysmically into ze sea at end of ze first age. Ze world in at large – in zis case, ze planet – is Arda.” 

Jim raised an eyebrow. “You too, huh?”

“ _Lord of the ze Rings_ is Russian inwention.” 

“It is possible that claim may be have been made in some Russian translations of the text,” said Spock, appearing to have recovered slightly. 

“All right, thank you, Mr. Chekov, for your geographical insights. So, Arda.” Jim clicked to the next slide. “Mixed human and humanoid population. Dwarves. Elves – not little toymaker elves, but Elves that will fuck you up six ways to Sunday, Mr. Spock assures me. Pantheon of allegedly real gods, including a fallen-angel type who’s been cocking up everything since the dawn of time with demons and lava and deeply unethical genetic experimentation in his evil fortress. Er…semi-divine beings with a wide range of manifestations, including but not limited too: dolphins, beings of pure fire, chill older dudes, and terrifyingly beautiful women. Also giant fucking spiders, and eagles that can sense our presence from space. Your basic sword-and-sorcery setup.” 

“Spock, get the hell up there and tell us what’s really going on.” 

“Hey, who’s the Captain here?!” 

“Thank you, Doctor, I would have far sooner had I not been temporarily incapacitated, in a most unethical manner.” 

“Special dispensation!” 

“Now shut it, all of ye! That air you’re respiring, with all yer nonsense? Comes from a little thing called technology. Which requires fuel. Which we’ve got about a thimbleful left of, at present.” 

There was an edge of desperation to Scotty’s normal belligerence. They all sank back into their seats around the table. For a moment the only sound was the hush of the ventilators. 

Spock rose, gingerly removing the hood of his jacket. “I thank you for reintroducing that concern, Mr. Scott. I shall endeavor to use as few words as possible. The action of _Quenta Silmarillion_ , the text in which we find ourselves presently involved, revolves around the capture, and attempted recovery, of the eponymous _silmarilli_ , three synthetically cultivated crystals that are described as having a number of remarkable properties, including a natural and enduring internal luminescence. While there is currently little evidence to support this conjecture, the emanation of light from the crystals does suggest the presence of an electromagnetic field. These jewels may possess similar atomic properties to our own dilithium crystals in an electromagnetically charged state.” 

“Right, then, let’s go and get one,” Scotty slammed his fist on the table. “I dun can if it’s a glow stick wrapped in a plastic bag. I’ll throw it on the warp core and see if she takes.” 

“Wouldn’t going to steal a silmaril also be insinuating ourselves into a massive geopolitical conflict?” said Sulu. “I’m just sayin’.” 

“Yeah, Spock, that sounds crazy, and also bizarrely unscientific for you. Which is to say: great plan, let’s get this show on the road.” 

“Captain – everyone, if you would refrain from jumping to conclusions. It is not my proposal that we endeavor to obtain a silmaril. Many jewels of a lesser significance and similar composition were crafted by the Noldor in Aman before their exile. It is logical to assume that many may still be extant. If we are able to beam down to the western continent, away from the theater of conflict, and obtain such a jewel, we can begin an assessment of whether this material will serve our purposes.” 

Jim nodded. “So – way less fun, but considerably more logical.” 

“As we are confronted with a fuel shortage and I am well-versed in the history and hypothetical culture of the Eldar, it is logical that I alone beam down to the planet to carry out this mission.” 

“Nice try, Spock. Sulu, you’ve got the keys. Chekov, I’ll bring you back a souvenir.” 

“Aye.” 

“ _Bolshaya spasiba_ , Keptin.” 

“You goddamn idiot, Jim.” 

“Better stab yourself with a few of those things, Bones, you’re coming too. Uhura, you’re XO. Keep an eye on our signal. You head up the recon team if it comes to that. Scotty,” Jim paused, “take care of our girl.” 

“Captain, to be frank, I’m not completely certain how long she’ll stay afloat. Do ye know how long we’ll be waitin’ for an answer?” 

Jim turned to his First. “Whaddaya say, Spock? Hop down, romance the natives, grab some shiny rocks – what, three days?” 

“If my coordinate calculations are within the margin of error and the ‘natives,’ as you, say, are amenable, seventy-two hours should suffice.” 

“Seventy-two hours to catch five kinds of magical dysentery five ways,” mumbled Dr. McCoy. 

“Keep it together, Bones.” Jim clapped him on the back, which made things feel a little more normal. “All right, let’s suit up.” 

“Captain.” 

Spock was still standing at the head of the table in his massive jacket, like the world’s most serious Eskimo. 

“Come on, Spock, I know you’re excited.” 

“Although we find ourselves in an alternate timeline – one that might previously have been deemed ‘fictional’ – it remains imperative that we uphold the Prime Directive.” 

Jim smiled a Jim Kirk smile. “Naturally, Mr. Spock. Easy in, easy out, right? And don’t worry,” he winked, “scientific observation will remain a high priority on this mission. So there will be plenty of time for a little fanboy sight-seeing. Strictly on the books, of course.” 

When alone in the conference room at last, it was possible that Spock configured his facial muscles into a fleeting expression of pleasure. 

\-- 

**FA 587 – The last days of the War of Wrath.**

The war had been awkward for Elrond – if several decades of unusual seismic activity and divine forces battling one another in spite of the citizenry underfoot could indeed be called a war. 

When it began he had been a child, not quite old enough to understand his part in the great theme, as Maglor called it, his mania for musical composition present in every life-lesson. Now, even as the dust settled from the glorious battles, the victories won at great cost to all, Elrond felt the refrain grow more complex, the scales delving into strange territory and the harmonies never resolved. 

He was no longer young but not at all old, certainly not by the measure of the Elves. And Elrond suspected – with a measure of guilt and a measure of pride – that he would join his father’s people. His true father, not the champion of the Valar charioting about burning orc armies to death with his fiery gaze, about whom Elrond felt achingly ambivalent. Elros – Elros who had ridden joyfully with the conquering armies, who had cultivated a lustrous beard seemingly out of sheer will from that identically hairless face of his – he could have that father. 

It was this dark mood, this revulsion in the face of heavenly light, that seemed to Elrond to be the most Elvish thing about himself at the moment. An Avarin streak in the blood, he might have thought, had he not been grossly overinformed on the subject of his own ancestry. 

And so, in the days following the breaking of Thangorodrim, in this midst of celebration and confusion and profuse drunkenness, Elrond found himself doing paperwork. Maedhros and Maglor had gone on errand to the encampment of the Valar, to argue the fate of the jewels. An uneasy, raucous atmosphere hung over the night. All the caskets of wine were long since emptied, though stores of grain alcohol seemed to be ever-replenishing. Various Fëanorian vassal-lords kept on barging in – in spite of all being at least seventy-five times older than Elrond, they were having a very difficult time keeping track of where their tents were situated. Snatches of loud, bawdy songs carried in and out on the wind. 

“My lord –”

Elrond did not look up. “There are emetics and tonics with the healers. And please refute the apparently wide-spread belief that I possess a hidden trove of smoked meat.” 

“A party has arrived within our borders.” Hatalindo, chief of the guards, stood near the entrance of the tent. Sober, it seemed. Bless him. 

“Nelyafinwë and Canafinwë have returned? It seems soon.” 

“No, lord. Two mortal men, and with them a dark Elf.” 

“An odd group of travelers. To whom do they swear fealty?” The war had blurred allegiances, and its aftermath had nurtured great opportunism among the servants of Morgoth Bauglir. 

“None has been professed, though they bear arms of an unknown make. They speak in a confused tongue. They seem to be, on the whole, quite confused. Like a passel of scared rabbits.” The Noldo smiled and shrugged. Perhaps he was drunk, or perhaps he was mildly drunk and did not feel sufficiently commanded by the adolescent stepchild of a Fëanorian to whom he had never given his sword. He was Celegorm’s man. Had been. 

Now, in the last years, they were all held together by the bonds of the Oath, fraying and chafing and, mercilessly, never breaking. 

Elrond suppressed an eye-roll and laid down his quill. His hands were smudged with ink, with the names of refugees, the missing, the dead. Whether his record would matter at all in the weeks to come was largely uncertain. It would not be long before everything was set in motion, the peoples of this world dispersed anew across the scarred hump of broken Beleriand. 

Two men and an Elf, traveling alone in uncertainty. The configuration seemed strangely prescient of the Age to come on this continent. 

“Bring them here, for I would speak to them.” 

“M’lord.” 

“Secondarily, please tell everyone to keep it down.” 

Hatalindo, conveniently, did not seem to have heard the second part of his request. 

\--

“FUCK!” 

Fifteen seconds into their transport to the surface of Arda, it had become clear that seventy-two hours would not, in fact, suffice for this mission. 

“Spock, what in the hell was that? I’ve never had a beam-down that bad in my _life_.” 

“Like a hot poker up the – ”

“Oh god, my eyes…”

“While there is insufficient data to account fully for your physical discomfort, the transporter beam appears to have encountered an unknown anomaly. We are fortunate to have survived.” 

“Damnit, man, I’ll feel fortunate when I know my kidneys are screwed in the right way.”

Jim blinked, slowly letting the light back in. He was lying on ground – on grass. His head hurt like hell. The rest of the pain was redistributing, springing little pools of agony whenever the nerves caught up. It had all happened so quickly – the normal, comfortable slide into energization slammed to a halt, like they were bouncing off of something mid-beam, all his molecules scattered and smacked back together. And an image seared into his memory, a green field like an aurora, shimmering in one moment and yet solid like land, like the shore of a far island rising from the edge of the horizon. And then a burst of light, blinding, pushing – 

“Fascinating.” 

Spock was already standing upright, tricorder in hand. They were in the middle of some kind of impossibly bleak field, and the dark robes he was wearing whipped in the wind. Of course he fit right in to the landscape. Jim and Bones, by contrast, looked like a couple of guys who’d put together their Renaissance Faire outfits together from the dumpster behind a Romulan department store. 

“We appear to be several thousand kilometers east of our target coordinates.” 

“ _What?_ ” 

“Don’t tell me shit like that when I’m handling medical equipment, Spock.” 

“C’mon, Bones, I’m fine.” 

The Vulcan had that slightly green, glazed-over look that was definitely not a good sign.

“My apologies, gentleman. My perfunctory conclusion is that, in our attempt to gain access to the Western continent, we were repelled by supernatural forces.” 

“ _Supernatural?!_ ” 

“Indeed. Passage to from Middle-earth to Aman is granted, with limited exception, to the Eldar alone. This is in the design of Eru Ilúvatar, the Father of All. Mortal beings cannot reach the shores of the undying lands, certainly not by force. I formulated our transport trajectory based on the assumption that, as we were traveling from orbit, the proscription would not affect us, and moreover that the properties of this theoretical barrier were not scientifically sound, having no evidence to support their existence in our scans of the planet’s atmosphere. I believed this more likely to be a metaphysical and mythologized interpretation of a cultural prohibition. My calculations failed to account for the presence of…magic.” 

The word rolled strangely off Spock’s tongue, as if this was the first time it had ever been spoken aloud. 

Bones sprang up, flailing his med-scanner. “Nice, Spock, we wind up in your personal favorite fairy tale and you _fail to account for the presence of magic._ A real auspicious start to things.”

“I use the term, Doctor, only because the phenomenon we recently encountered is beyond the limits of my personal understanding. With further study I hope to classify it within the known laws of physics. Furthermore, the expression ‘fairy tale’ is not suitable – ”

Jim’s whole head was pulsing, like a hugely magnified heartbeat – or no, the vibrations were coming from the ground. Hoofbeats. 

When he raised his neck, he could see the riders ringing in around them. 

“Woah woah woah – guys, ten o’clock, stop bickering, AUUGH.” 

In an attempt to stand, Jim collapsed on a foot that was, evidently, broken in a few places. Fantastic. 

“That’s exactly what I was trying to preclude. Now stay the hell down.” 

“The captain is justified in his concern, as we are being approached by a party on horseback.” 

“Well, then, it’s your time to shine, Mr. Spock. Inter-Hobgoblin relations, 101.” 

Spock nodded, and turned to face the gathering banners.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The Fëanorian thorn = basically that Fëanor preferred to speak with a lisp in honor of his mom, excellent explanation here: http://askmiddlearth.tumblr.com/post/49124791260/feanors-lisp
> 
> 2\. Spock sassing Chekov = Russian samizdat (unauthorized) editions of Lord of the Rings from the Soviet era often were arbitrarily abridged, had modified plot points, or randomly changed in other ways. By the 23rd century, maybe the telephone chain of misinformation has come to this point. 
> 
> 3\. dolphins = I'm guessing at least a few of Ulmo's maia were dolphins.
> 
> 4\. bolshaya spasiba = thank you 
> 
> 5\. Hatalindo = "spear-user" 
> 
> 6\. Nelyafinwë // Canafinwë = formal Quenya "father" names for Maedhros + Maglor

**Author's Note:**

> Star Dome = lit. translation of Elrond


End file.
